King Cricket

April 28, 2021 County cricket

We’re mostly talking about Matt Parkinson this week

2 minute readMatt Parkinson bowled someone with a ball-of-the-century-esque leg break earlier this month. He is also the man responsible for the slowest delivery in the entire CricViz database. Last week he took 7-126 in Lancashire’s innings victory over Kent, meaning he now has 15 wickets at 16.80 this season – despite

Three great bowlers’ run-ups – but do you have a favourite?

9 minute readCan we talk about bowlers’ run-ups? We’ve picked out three great ones. They’re not necessarily our favourites, but we feel like each one says something in particular about how bowlers get to the crease and what we as viewers feel as they’re doing so. But before that, please can we

April 23, 2021 Regulars

Omelette being conspicuously indifferent to the highlights of the 2011 England v India Test series

< 1 minute readRob writes: “Hello King Cricket. (Long time listener, first time caller.) Here is a picture of a cat named Omelette giving me a judging expression for watching the highlights of the 2011 England v India Test series (mainly to remind myself of an era where RP Singh was considered the

April 21, 2021 England

How will Ed Smith, England national selector, be remembered? We’ll tell you how Ed Smith, England national selector, will be remembered

< 1 minute read“How can ideas have a positive and elevating effect on a practical sphere?” said Ed Smith when we played a Financial Times video about him from an entirely random starting point just now. It turned out that, when he said that, Smith was talking about an article he’d read by

April 19, 2021 India

Did you see… Virat Kohli’s vertical clapping?

2 minute readIf Virat Kohli has a defining quality, it is faintly-unnerving intensity. Remember that time he was basically livid about beating Australia? Or all of those very many times when he celebrated a hundred with incandescent rage? We’re if not quite numb to these displays by now, then at least acclimatised

April 16, 2021 Australia / England

Get ready for a ridiculous fucken Ashes

< 1 minute readLast month we asked which series we should cover next on our Ridiculous Ashes podcast. The results are in. (The results were in a month ago.) We’re going to be doing the 2013/14 series. We nominated 2009 and 2013 as the other possibilities and for a long time the three

April 14, 2021 Match report

Ged Ladd & Co v Children’s Society XI – match report + wagon wheel

2 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only interested in what it was like to be at the game, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. Equally, if it’s an amateur match, please go into excruciating detail. Herbert Ackgrass (the official cricket biographer of

April 12, 2021 County cricket

A very obvious argument against tinkering with county cricket

2 minute readThis is not an argument in favour of the status quo. This is not an argument to say never change things. It is just to point out that if you change every single county cricket competition, every single year, there are consequences. The format of county cricket has been tinkered

April 9, 2021 County cricket

Darren Stevens: a quite magnificently durable Wookie of a cricketer

2 minute readWas there a specific moment when you realised you were no longer young? We’re assuming you’ve realised by now. If you haven’t, we’re sorry to break it to you, but… We remember being highly alarmed the first time we heard Calvin Harris sing, “I’ve got love for you if you

April 8, 2021 Regulars

A cricketer in an unusual place

< 1 minute readSend your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Feel free to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself. (In fact please, please, please do. No-one sends us any of those and they’re our favourite ones.) Mike writes… While at the excellent